Description:
Fan with 16 carved and pierced ivory sicks, which is decorated on paper with a watercolor rural scene with an elegantly-dressed man and woman in the center and another local man bowing to them on the left; the reverse has a small brown island with one tree. The fan was sold at Amherst Auction Galleries, June 12, 1976, as part of the estate of Mary W. (Mollie) Wells of Deerfield, the great grand daughter of Augustus Wells (1798-1861)), the eldest surviving son of Samuel Wells and Esther Arms Wells of Deerfield, and Miranda Wells. A lady’s fan or mask was the perfect foil for concealing emotion or emphasizing a mood in public. Decorative masks, which covered the upper half of the face and might be trimmed in velvet or fur, were worn outdoors in cooler weather by fashionable women. Sylvester Judd of Hadley, Massachusetts, wrote: "Formerly there was a fashion of wearing masks made of silk velvet and made stiff with paper. There was a hole for breathing and places for eyes – a few had them in Northampton – some of Mr. [Reverend Jonathan] Edwards daughters, it is said." When Sarah Wiilliams (1716-1737), the youngest daughter of the Reverend John Williams, died in Deerfield, the appraisers listed, along with her riding hoods, shoes, and several gloves, "a mask 2 sh and one fann 4 sh 6 d."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+76.043 |
